Joe Favorito and Tom Richardson welcome Jamie Watson, soccer broadcaster and play-by-play announcer, to discuss her unconventional path into sports media, the evolving world of remote broadcasting, and her groundbreaking work in audio descriptive commentary for FIFA and Netflix. Watson shares her journey from Division I soccer player at UMass and college coach at UMBC to becoming a golf teaching pro before pivoting to broadcasting in her 40s, calling nearly 100 games in just the last two years. She breaks down what audio descriptive commentary actually is, how she trained with FIFA’s accessibility partner in Washington DC to call six matches at the Club World Cup for blind and low vision fans, and how she later applied those skills to Netflix’s Field of Dreams game as an overlay commentator. The conversation also covers the state of women’s soccer from the NWSL’s explosive growth to the challenge of elite American players leaving for overseas, the debate over whether star announcers actually move ratings, and what remote broadcasting technology now makes possible for play-by-play talent calling live international events from their home studios.

Learn more about Jamie: https://jamiewatsonsports.com/

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The CUSP Show is hosted by Joe Favorito (@Joefav) and Tom Richardson (@ConvergenceTR) and produced by Sam Henry (@s_henry11), LJ Holmgren (@LJ_Holmgren), and Danny Hagenlocher (@DhColumbiaSPS), with social media efforts led by Lissa Ruiz and Sydney Cristall.

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